Wood is comprised in major proportion of cellulose and hemicellulose fiber and amorphous, non-fibrous lignin which serves to hold the fibrous portions together. The hemicellulose and the cellulose are sometimes referred to collectively as holocellulose. During the treatment of wood to produce pulp, the wood is transformed into a fibrous mass by removing a substantial portion of the lignin from the wood. Thus, processes for the production of paper and paper products generally include a pulping stage in which wood, usually in the form of wood chips, is reduced to a fibrous mass. Several different pulping methods are known in the art; they are generally classified as mechanical, chemical or semi-chemical pulping.
Chemical pulping methods include a wide variety of processes, such as the sulfite process, the bisulfite process, the soda process and the Kraft process. The Kraft process is the predominant form of chemical pulping.
Chemical pulping operations generally comprise introducing wood chips into a digesting vessel where they are cooked in a chemical liquor. In the Kraft process, the cooking liquor comprises a mixture of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. After the required cooking period, softened and delignified wood chips are separated from the cooking liquor to produce a fibrous mass of pulp. The pulp produced by chemical pulping is called "brownstock." The brownstock is typically washed to remove cooking liquor and then processed for the production of unbleached grades of paper products or, alternatively, bleached for the production of high brightness paper products.
Since chromophoric groups on the lignin are principally responsible for color in the pulp, most methods for the bleaching of brownstock require further delignification of the brownstock. For example, the brownstock may be reacted with elemental chlorine in an acidic medium or with hypochlorite in an alkaline solution to effect this further delignification. These steps are typically followed by reactions with chlorine dioxide to produce a fully bleached product. Oxygen delignification is a method that has been used at an increasing rate in recent years for the bleaching of pulp because it uses inexpensive bleach chemicals and produces by-products which can be burned in a recovery boiler reducing environmental pollutants. Oxygen delignification is frequently followed by bleach stages which use chlorine or chlorine dioxide but require less bleach chemical and produce less environmental pollutants because of the bleaching achieved in the oxygen stage.
In some bleaching processes, the pulp is bleached while being maintained at low to medium levels of pulp consistency. Pulp consistency is a measure of the percentage of solid fibrous material in pulp. Pulps having a consistency of less than about 10% by weight are said to be in the low to medium range of pulp consistency. Processes which require bleaching at low to medium consistency are described in the following patents and publications: U.S. Pat. No. 4,198,266, issued to Kirk et al; U.S. Pat. No. 4,431,480, issued to Markham et al; U.S. Pat. No. 4,220,498, issued to Prough; and an article by Kirk et al. entitled "Low-consistency Oxygen Delignification in a Pipeline Reactor--A Pilot Study", TAPPI, May 1978. Each of the foregoing describe an oxygen delignification step that operates upon pulps in the low to medium consistency range.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,806,203, issued to Elton, discloses an alkaline extraction, preferably for chlorinated pulp, wherein the timed removal of alkaline solution is essential to prevent redepositing of dissolved lignin back onto the pulp. If too short or too long of a time period passes in this stage, the process shows little benefit.
Oxygen delignification of wood pulp can be carried out on fluffed, high consistency pulp in a pressurized reactor. The consistency of the pulp is typically maintained between about 20% and 30% by weight during the oxygen delignification step. Gaseous oxygen at pressures of from about 80 to about 100 psig is introduced into and reacted with the high consistency pulp. See, G.A. Smook, Handbook for Pulp and Paper Technologists, Chapter 11.4 (1982). In previous oxygen delignification operations, the pulp after cooking is washed and dewatered to produce a high consistency mat. The pulp mat is then covered with a thin film or layer of an alkaline solution, by spraying the solution onto the surface of the mat. The amount of alkaline solution sprayed onto the mat is about 0.8 to 7% by weight of oven dry pulp.
Previously used high consistency oxygen delignification processes have several disadvantages. In particular, it has now been found that spraying an alkaline solution otto a mat of high consistency pulp does not provide an even distribution of solution throughout the fibrous mass, notwithstanding the generally porous nature of such mats. As a result of this uneven distribution, certain areas of the high consistency mat, usually the outer portions, are exposed to excessive amounts of the alkaline solution. This excessive exposure is believed to cause nonselective degradation of the holocellulosic materials resulting in a relatively weak pulp, at least locally. On the other hand, other portions of the high consistency mat, typically the inner portions, may not be sufficiently exposed to the alkaline solution to achieve the desired degree of delignification. Thus, overall quality declines.